December 18, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode, Lara Trump sits down with John Hinderaker of Power Line Blog for an in-depth look at the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal. John explains why the fraud has been widely known in Minnesota for years, how state officials ignored it, and why he believes the real numbers could reach into the billions. The discussion explores how political leaders, including Tim Walz, relied on the Somali community as a reliable voting bloc despite the corruption. Later, Lara is joined by Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna to discuss her push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, the resistance she’s facing from both parties, and was even told that the effort could hurt Republicans in the midterms, and why the United States is still funding the Taliban and what can be done to stop it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And oh all back.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Down May May Hey, everybody, thanks so much for joining
us right here on the right view tonight we're joined
by Florida congresswoman, my friend you know her, you love her,
Anna Paulina Luna.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Thank you much for joining us tonight. Congresswoman. We're so
excited to have you on. You have been very vocal
on X about pushing for a band on insider trading
in Congress. I think this is music to a lot
of people's ears. So tell me about this. What inspired
you to lead this charge?
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, since I got in, there's been this no no
like kind of this dirty little secret that all members
of Congress know that there are members actively getting and
engaging in insider trading, so obviously super illegal, but people
kept saying they wanted to do something publicly about it,
especially to the press, but they weren't actually doing anything.
And so I was actually sitting on the steps of
the Capitol with Representative Birchet from Tennessee, and we had
(01:05):
just seen a massive posting from I think it was
that unusual Wales website, but there was a member of
Congress that had done a multimillion dollar trade. Of course,
the legislation went through, so they basically shortened the stock
and I'm like, this is this has to stop, right
Like optically, the American people a don't respect Congress because
of it. I think it's in part why this institution
is so broken, because how could you ever expect to
(01:25):
fix anything if you're personally profiting. And so I said,
you know what, We're just going to force the vote
on this. And so there's a piece of bipartisan legislation
over one hundred Democrats and Republicans collectively had signed onto
to actually bring to the floor for a vote, but
no one in House leadership actually wanted to do it,
and so we filed the discharge petition. We've so far
collected over seventy signatures for it. And then I just
(01:47):
actually got notification about an hour and a half ago
that the speakers wanting to meet with us on Thursday
to discuss bringing the bill to the floor in a
normal fashion, which I would advocate for, but I mean, Laura,
it's been an ongoing issue in a nutshell for a
very long time. No one wanted to fix it, so
we figured we forced the conversation in the bot well.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So that's great news. So hopefully we're going to see
some movement on this soon. You said you have over
seventy members who signed on to the petition, you have
the Speaker wanting to meet about it. Is there something
else you would need or do you just need the
speaker's blessing to get it on the floor.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Well, the Speaker could put it technically on the floor,
you know, this week if you wanted to write, But
ultimately it'll probably happen when we get back, just because
there has to be consensus on the bill. But there's
a lot of parliamentary stuff that goes into it, right,
Like to do an open amendment process would be to
allow members to provide amendments and then mark it up
literally on the floor, and then whatever passes is then
codified and sol and sent over to the Senate. Right,
(02:39):
so that would be the typical process. But I mean,
either which way, when you have people like Nancy Pelosi
who has made seventeen thousand percent returns on her initial investment,
which is statistically not possible unless you are literally insider trading,
and then members both Democrats and Republicans who do engage
in the individual stock trader making now on average six
hundred percent returns on their investments out performing the SA
(03:00):
or you'll have people that have never traded stocks in
their life and all of a sudden they come to
Congress and their you know, outperforming Wall Street. That's a problem,
and so you know it is it is a step
forward in the right direction. I've also heard from, you know,
some of my Democrat colleagues, one most notably Hockeying Jeffreys,
that said, well, you know, Luna just parachuted in and
she doesn't want to include the executive branch.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Well, I would argue that.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
If we had the same standards as an executive branch,
that there would be no insider trading. And so that's
been kind of interesting to see Democrats kind of try
to box himself into the corner on this because it's like,
why would you not want.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
To fix this.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I've been in Congress a lot less of time versus
these other people, and so why am I having to
fix it?
Speaker 5 (03:36):
But here I am.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I give you a lot of credit for taking this
on because you know, there are a lot of people,
very clearly congresswomen who've made a lot of money because
of this, and I'm sure there are a lot of
people in Congress who were probably like I wish Luna
would just stop talking and just kind of write like
you know that you think about that. I mean, has
(03:59):
anyone ever other than obviously what Hakim Jeffrey said, But
do people ever say like, hey, just knock it.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Off, like that's enough.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
I was told that if we forced the vote, that
we were going to cost you know, the Republican Party
in the midterms, that we were going to destroy democracy,
that we were trying to just force their colleagues to
take bad votes. But I would say to that, you know,
first of all, destroying the democracy of the republic. You know,
the founding fathers didn't have stock portfolios, and they different
definitely didn't anticipate that legislation would be kind of run
(04:26):
the way that it is in the Congress, would be
a full time job at that So probably separate discussion
for term limits.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
But specifically to that.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, they've told me that, you know, this is not
wildly popular.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
But it's interesting because you look at the.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Polling and eighty six percent of Americans support this, yep,
bipartisan length.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I was going to say, I think it's probably unpopular
within the walls of in the halls of Congress. I
think out in the country, the American people would love
to see something like this because I think it actually says,
as you noted, like we should be the example, we
should be doing the right thing here in Congress, right,
So I think that to me, I think that's a
(05:03):
win for the midterms.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't know who thinks otherwise.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
But you're a smart one.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
But you know something else that I think has been
very kind of crazy to see happen. But I guess
maybe you shouldn't surprise us are the activist judges and
prosecutors in these blue states.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Now. I know that you've talked about this.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I've heard, of course the President and Vice president talk
about it. Is there anything that can be done there?
Because I think it is. It's outrageous that it feels
like they're they're thwarting the will of the president, and
that is really the will of the American people who
put them there.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I mean, you know, in the state of Florida, for example,
if we have individuals prosecutors that are undermining federal law.
I mean, I think that there's a certain statute where
the governor could essentially remove someone and we actually had
a case that it happened with a source appointed, a
source funded prosecutor. But you know, for the rest of
the country, unfortunately, I do think that a lot of
these are.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
You know, kind of an touchable and that's why they
choose to pursue what they do.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
But it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't hold them accountable.
For example, when you have you know, judges for example,
that are upholding certain legislation.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Let's say a city's doing something.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Undermining federal law, maybe it goes to court they're undermining it. Well,
there's still something that the DOJ can do if you
know that someone's breaking a federal law, right and so
I think that the DOJ right now is pretty much understaffed,
specifically with the amount of people and resources that they
really have to be able to pursue everything. And to
be clear, you know, you have the Trump administration coming in,
but this is like decades of consolidated power and really swampy,
(06:33):
deep state bureaucratic behavior that has to be really fleshed out.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
And so you know, you could bring forward.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
All the prosecutor or all the cases for prosecution, but
if you don't have the proper attorneys, the AUSA attorneys
to actually try the cases.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Then your short.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Staff there and so would What I would continue to
say is, you know, Congress has that specific ability to
use and leverage the power of the purse. And so
if you see that cities and counties and states are
not playing ball with the right thing to do with
with what the federal governments legislating on and really upholding
the laws of the land, then why the heck are
we funding them? Why are we giving these representatives for
these areas and these districts such massive earmarks and the
(07:10):
appropriation spills. I mean, that's something that I think Congress
as a whole needs to be more aggressive about. But
it does seem really in the last couple of years,
it seemed like Congress really was very happy to not
have social media because they could do these things kind
of behind closed doors and you could didn't really have
a spotlight on it. But now there's people like myself
and others that will call it out and identify it directly.
(07:30):
So I guess it's made me again, probably wildly and
popular within the House Chamber, but popular among the American people.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, we like that you have always have a place
in our hearts for sure. Something that I think is
really amazing is you helped stop American tax dollars from
going to the Taliban, which I mean, first of all,
that is quite an accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I hope you're proud of that.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And please explain how on earth we found ourselves in
this situation where he was going there anyway.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, for so to provide context, I would have never
voted for legislation that allowed that to happen, because that
Taliban literally shot my husband in twenty fourteen when he
was deployed. So like, that's the perspective. And I don't
think that we should be funding any organization or government
like that. We have a lot other bigger issues to fry.
But specifically to that legislation, Tim Burchette had actually come
(08:22):
up with a piece of legislation I think the numbers
like about forty million a week going to the Taliban,
and he put it into log He wanted it to
be in the National Defense Authorization Act that no US
dollars would go to the government of Afghanistan, i e.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
The Taliban.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Right, it was like very simple language, and they refused
to add it into the National Defense Authorization Act. In fact,
there was one staffer specifically that ripped it out over there.
And then so what we did is when it came
time for the bill to be voted on on the
House floor, so went to Senate and then came back
to the House to you know, be sent through then
off to the President's ysk for signature. Birchett, myself and
Bober actually withheld our votes and then we actually had
(08:59):
the Speaker get the Secretary of State on the phone
and explain the situation. And Secretary Rubia, to his credit,
said like, first of all, we are unaware that this
was still happening, and Burchette actually does have a list
of about a thousand NGOs that are actually engaging in this.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
We totally have the paper trail for it.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
And so he said, look, make an appointment with my
office as soon as you get this. Get this information
directly to me, and I'll cut it off immediately. He
was joking, goes, youah, the President would have my behind
if you realized that the State Department was doing this.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
And so, to Rubia's.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Credit, had he not been made aware of that and
had we not withheld the vote, then that wouldn't have happened.
Because there's so many people that, especially within the Secretary
or even the executive branch, they try to kind of
consolidate and pad and insulate really the members or the
secretary in these different positions.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
And so we're able to go direct.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
General has always talked to General, so we're able to
go direct to sender. And actually I believe it's going
to be sometime this week that Secretary Rubio will be
meeting with Timberjett and myself to actually get that finalized.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I cannot believe that any anyone was advocating for that.
That is, it's just mind byuggling. It's just mind boggling.
But thank you, thank you for making sure that didn't happen.
That is absolutely wild. But it just goes to show
what a little bit of thoughtfulness and effort will do.
You know, a lot of people would have just been
(10:14):
fine to say, like, all right, this isn't our problem,
like we're just going to look the other way. But
it takes someone like you. It takes someone like President
Trump who says, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is this is
not right, Like we can't continue on like this. So
so thank you for so much for doing that. This
has been quite a year in Congress, It's been quite
(10:35):
a year for the country. Obviously, we have President Trump
as his into his first full year back in the
White House. What what do you expect to see happen
in twenty twenty six. What are some of your priorities
and focus is going to be in the coming year?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
The number one thing, I think, especially for the based
Republican voter, and then also for turnout for the midterms,
because remember, if we don't win the midterms, it's going
to be impeachment two point out all over again. And
you know, it's interesting because even Nancy Pulos is like,
why don't see grounds for impeachment? Well, Nancy, where there
was never grounds for impeachment in the first place. But
she's also on our way out, so she's not worried
about her reelection, so she's telling the truth for probably
(11:13):
the first time in her entire career. But you know,
you have this aspect of really the American people and
really like some members of Congress like myself, that are
frustrated that we haven't been able to codify more of
Trump's executive orders. And so just today it was announced
out of the House top that I believe that it's
going to be eighty one executive orders. I think it
was Caroline Lovett maybe that was also in conjunction discussing
this of the executive orders will be codified into law,
(11:36):
and that's incredibly important because you know, when eventually a
Democrat administration comes in or a Democrat Congress comes in,
you have to make sure that those laws are literally
carved in stone, because it's not that often that you
have a Democrat super majority or Republican supermajority, which means
you have all three chambers House, Senate and then White
House as well, or two chambers and then the White House,
and so it's really important that we make sure that happens.
(11:58):
So i'd say that that's probably topic number one, and
then also to talking about issues of affordability. Remember President
Trump inherited literally a garbage on fire from the Biden administration,
and there's certain things that we can do though to
ensure that everything that he's been fighting for, and really
he's been doing a lot of the heavy blocking that
we're able to get wins on.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
And so the number one thing I think would.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Be focusing on is, for example, something easy like a
capping prescription pill prices.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
That's something that's incredibly like just in.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
My opinion, it's very you know, you don't have to
think about it too much on understanding that that's a
win for the American people and so things like that
I think would be top priority. And then also to
ensuring that Congress is backing the president's perspective and the
administration really on his foreign policy. I do think I
think a lot of people have not talked about this,
but if President Trump, which I think he will be,
(12:46):
with Steve Wincoffin and also Jared Kushner being able to
accomplish the Ukraine Russia peace deal, we're talking about a
two trillion dollar trade deal potential on the horizon, that's
going to be great for everyone. I mean, you think
that right now things are expensive actuality, I think that
it's going to drop significantly better than you would have
ever seen under the Biden administration.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Well, I will tell you all of that stuff sounds
absolutely great to me and to a lot of people.
And I love that you brought up the midterms. This
is just to wrap it up, because we know you
got things going on. You know, everyone talks about the
midterms Everyone talks about why we need to win these midterms,
But I still believe that if the Democrats were able
(13:27):
to get their you know, claws back in Congress, that
they were able to get a majority in the House
and Senate again. Congresswoman, I think that we're looking at
DC and Puerto Rico statehood. I think we're looking at
a pack Supreme Court. I think we're looking at eliminating
the filibuster. I think this could be very dangerous. And
you're absolutely right, they're gonna they can't wait to impeach
(13:48):
the president again. It's all they're just salivating over the
prospect of it. Tell the American people why this is
so important to keep a House and Senate under Republican
leadership in the coming year.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, because, I mean they've said it. The Democrats have
said it point blank. I mean their game plan is
to a obstruct and then be impeach where they can.
And so they are going to do everything that they can.
If you think that you're you know, noticing gas prices
going down, et cetera, that's because of foreign policy wins,
that's because of domestic policy wins. And they're going to
do everything they can to stop that. You know, it's
interesting right now, we're talking about health care a lot
(14:24):
on the Hill and you have, you know, people like
Mike Lawler, who actually had you know, a great floor speech.
He goes, you know, the Democrats aren't even trying to
fix this issue. We have maybe potentially solutions here, but
they don't even want to allow their members to sign
on to a discharge petition that could offer solution because
they're actually not focused on actually fixing it. They're focused
on reelecting, trying to get their base drummed up for
the midterms and a show of support, and that you know,
(14:46):
they really don't care at.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
What cost or expense that it happens at.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And so I you know, unfortunately, I see these conversations
happen on a regular basis behind closed doors.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
And so that's the reality. We have a very short window.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And look, I'm a member of Congress, and I'm not
always happy with the way that Congress performs.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
However, I can tell you it's a heck of a.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Lot better in this administration and in a Republican health
Congress than under Democrat or Democrat presidency.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
And that's just the fact of the matter.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
You know, we went from having you know, people flashing
people on the White House lawn that were biological males,
to a number of other creepy things happening out of
the Department of the formal Department of Defense, to where
we have a strong military, we have you know, class
back in the White House, and we have a lot
of good people that genuinely care about this country.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
And so we're going to continue.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I hope to be on the campaign trail with you
and with the President in the midterms. I'm sure you'll
be out there. He loves you. You're great at what
you do. Laura, thank you, and we'll be helping the
president bring home the win.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
We have to do it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
It's important, you know, people tend to during these midterm
years kind of get laxadaisical about things. We can't do
that it's too important. You have to understand that if
you went out and voted in twenty twenty four for
President Trump and you like the wins that he's been scoring,
you got to keep them going for the last half
of his second term in office, and you have to
(15:59):
get out and vote in those midterms. So Congresswoman Patlin Aluna,
thank you so much for joining us this evening.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
We appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Thanks for all you do, keep kicking ass there in
DC and taking names. We absolutely love to see it
and we'll talk to you very soon. Thank you so much,
my friend.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
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We're joined by President of the American Experiment, John Hinderocker. John,
(18:19):
Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being
with us. As someone who's based in Minnesota, you know
where we gotta go. We gotta go to the fraud.
I have to ask you about this. It is so
mind boggling to think that at least that we know
of a billion dollars in fraud was committed there in
the state of Minnesota. Tell me about what you found
(18:41):
to be the case there. Did people know that there
was something going on where they're whispers of this before
it came to light, because I think a lot of
us were totally shaken whenever we heard the news of
this come out.
Speaker 6 (18:53):
Well, first of all, the assistant US Attorney who has
prosecuted all these cases has publicly said that.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
The total fraud, and there are multiple.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
Frauds, add up to the billions of dollars plurals. He
says his office does not have the band power to
prosecute the ball. Some of these people are going to
walk because law enforcement really just can't handle the multiplicity
of frauds.
Speaker 7 (19:15):
So there's a lot of history here.
Speaker 6 (19:17):
My organization American Experiment on my website power Line have
both been writing about the Feeding our Future fraud, which
is the biggest of them and the one that got
the most famous since January of twenty twenty two. So
that'll be four years next month.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
This is locally really kind of an old story. It
was investigated by the FBI, it's been prosecuted by the
US Attorney's Office, and there have been two trials with
criminal convictions. There's another fifty or sixty defendants who have
pleaded guilty, and so there's a lot of water over
this dam. And there have been prior scandals centered in
the Somali community here in Minnesota. You can go back
(19:55):
a decade and there were childcare scandals where people would
just make up aims of Somali children and claim that
they're caring for them in these daycare centers, and in
fact they didn't exist. And there were some criminal prosecutions
I think a decade ago, arising out of those frauds.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
So there's a lot of history here. Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
So how did that one the feeding our future start
to come to light? Was there something special that kind
of broke the dam on that?
Speaker 7 (20:23):
Well?
Speaker 6 (20:24):
I think actually there were some people in the Somali
community who started blowing the whistle and say, hey, there's
an enormous amount of money flowing out of the state
government and going to defraudsters. And the FBI got a
tip and they started to investigate. State authorities never did
do anything. There was a lawsuit going on between Feeding
(20:44):
Our Future and the Department of Education of the State
of Minnesota, which is the agency that oversaw that particular program.
That lawsuit dragged on for some time. But these prosecutions
have all been federal and they've all been the result
of investstigation by the FBI and prosecution by the US
Attorney's Office now extending over a period of going on
(21:08):
four years.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
So the question that everyone has, and I don't know
that we'll ever get an answer to this, is why
did Governor Tim Walls's administration failed to either prevent this
or stop it whenever? It seems like they knew about it.
From what I've read, it sounds like there were kind
of rumblings of this, but they said, oh, we don't
(21:30):
want to look like we're targeting a certain group or anything.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
What is your take on that.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Well, there's a lot you could say there. The Legislative
Auditor did an investigation, wrote a very good report tracing
the history of the Feeding our Future fraud in particular
and talking about the reasons for it, and she concluded
that the ultimate cause was a culture within these state
agencies where they just don't care about other people's money.
(21:58):
They're there to write check and they didn't really care
is this legit, is it fraudulent? Is a person eligible
for this program? They saw their job simply as writing checks.
I think it goes a little bit deeper than that.
The Walls administration has poured billions and billions of dollars
into the Somali community. Some of it was legal, some
(22:20):
of it was legitimate, some of it was just successively generous,
and we now know that a lot of it was fraudulent.
But at the end of the day, that didn't really matter.
The billions of dollars that the Walls administration poured into
the Somali community had the desired result, which is to
create a very loyal and substantial voting block in the
(22:42):
city of Minneapolis, in Hannipin County, which is the county
of Minneapolis is in, and even the whole state.
Speaker 7 (22:48):
There have been statewide.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Elections that have been swung by Somali voters, and I
think that is probably the ultimate cause. This is a
classic example of using other people's money to buy votes.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You know, to hear you say that the people who
were kind of working in these different agencies weren't concerned
with other people's money. I think that's exactly right, and
I think it's part of the thing that frustrates so
many Americans. It's why John, I'm guessing whenever people started
hearing initially about Doge and what Elon Musk was doing
with Doge, people were like, well, thank god, somebody is
(23:23):
paying attention, because it feels like to the average American
that you have no idea what happens to your money,
and you assume the worst, You assume that things like
this are happening out there. And to hear that that
was probably the case, man, that is so upsetting and
so frustrating and shame on all of these people.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You got to be better than that. That is part
of your job.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And I'm hopefully they clean house and we get you know,
new people in there at the very least who understand
the value of people's money.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
But I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think a lot of this comes down to politics.
When you hear Tim Walls, I believe it was this weekend,
a fundraising event in Seattle, talking about the fact that
he wants to bring more Somali's into the state of Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
That kind of tells you all you need to know.
Speaker 7 (24:10):
John, It kind of boggles the mind. Let me just
add this thing.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
There are multiple programs, multiple different frauds. What are these programs?
It was a medicaid program and the idea was to
give people advice on how they could find housing. What
that has to do with medicaid, I don't know. But
an investigation found that out of the one hundred million
dollars that program spent last year twenty twenty four, there
(24:35):
was not a single.
Speaker 7 (24:36):
Dollar that was proper and legal.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
The entire one hundred million dollars was completely fraudulent, and
they terminated the program. So we're not just talking about
a little fraud around the edges, you know, We're talking
about just unbelievable, pervasive, massive fraud.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Jeez, let me ask Let me ask you about Tim
Walls becoming Kamala Harris's v pick.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Did that surprise you? What did you make of that?
Speaker 6 (25:04):
Well, I think it's surprised almost everywhere. You know he
got on the short list. I'm to put out a
list of five or six people, and Tim Wallas was
probably the least well known and the least likely to
get the VP nomination on that list. But in my opinion,
what happened is that one thing after another came along.
So Mark Kelly was probably going to be the guy
I started from Arizona that it turned out he was
(25:25):
a partner in a satellite deal with the communist Chinese.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
That'll do it every time.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
Yeah, the governor of Kentucky pulled out for whatever reason,
so what after another fell? It looked like it was
going to be Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. But
then at the eleventh and they even scheduled the rally
where they're going to make the announcement in Philadelphia. It
wasn't Minneapolis, it was Philadelphia, and Josh Shapiro.
Speaker 7 (25:50):
Was going to be the VP nominee.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
But then just days before that happened, there was a
story that came out when he was a college student,
he wrote a paper that was critical of the Palestinians,
was pro Israel. The anti Semites on Twitter went crazy,
genocide Josh, hashtag genocide Josh was all over left wing Twitter.
(26:13):
And what I think happened is Kamla panicked and said,
oh no, I can't go with the Shapiro, who's left.
Then the guy that was left was Tim Walls. I
don't think he was very carefully vetted, and he certainly
was not at that time very widely known.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Oh my gosh, No, I think it shocked all of us,
because you're right, I think we all assumed Josh Shapiro
was probably the guy, especially to your point. They had
a whole thing set up there in Pennsylvania. Believe me,
when we heard Tim Walls and then to see them
try to make Tim Walls, like you know, become the guy, it.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Just didn't stick. It didn't land, I don't think with
the American people.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
So no, no, that was probably not the best pig
turned out. It was a great pig as far as
we were concerned at the RNC and the Trump campaign.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Have there been any political repercussions or investigations into any
of these state officials that we're mentioning that are probably
involved in all of this chaos there in Minnesota.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Well, in April, my organization obtained a tape recording that
had been made by a participant, secretly made by a
participant in a meeting between six or seven feeding our
future people and our Attorney General, Keith Ellison, and they
were complaining that the Department of Education was starting to
get tough. They were talking about cutting off funding and
(27:32):
could Alison intervene to protect them from these people who
are questioning all this money flowing out the door, because
after all, it's just racism, right And so our Attorney
General Keith Ellison said, yeah, a lot of racists in
these agencies. Sometimes I have to make a phone call
that'll usually take care of it. And he said, Governor
Wallace agrees with me that these stupid piddly things either
(27:55):
Feeding our Future scandal shouldn't be used against East Africa
and business people. And about nine days I think it
was after that, some of these Feeding our Future people
made campaign contributions to Keith Ellison and also his son
who's also in politics. And then a few days after
that the FBI raids happened and the whole scandal blue
(28:16):
sky high. But right up until the last minute, the
Attorney General of our state, far from leading the prosecutions,
far from running the investigations and uncovering and prosecuting the fraud,
was undertaking to help the fraudsters.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
That's probably the least surprising thing I've ever heard, especially
as it relates to Keith Ellison.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
There are other attorneys general around the country who likewise
have not really done the job that they were elected
to do. But that's probably the least surprising thing anybody's
ever heard. So do you think, John, that this ultimately
has any sort of an impact in the way people
in Minnesota their thing? Do you think that this shakes
(28:58):
people awake and they say, wait a minute, Maybe we
got to wake up and we got to study for
whom we are voting a little more close, So we've
got to study what the goals are of these people.
Maybe does this push them a little more right in Minnesota?
What do you think the impact of this will be?
Speaker 7 (29:15):
Well, it had better have some impact. Right.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
If this doesn't, I'm not sure what it would take.
My organization polled this issue for our quarterly magazine in September.
Our polling found that fifty six percent of respondents thought
Governor Walls had not done enough about fraud in the suburbs,
which are the key battleground areas. Sixty one percent thought
he hadn't done enough. Now, after the scandal went national,
(29:38):
that's when it was still a Minnesota news story.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
Then it went national.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
Within the last month or so, one of the local
TV stations did some polling and the numbers were even worse.
There's a high level of concern and a high level
of criticism directed toward Tim Walls and his administration in
the polling. So we'll find out in November, I guess,
you know, we'll find out whether voters are really to
(30:02):
be serious about this or not.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
It is an interesting situation and I think it, you know,
it perfectly encapsulates why people oftentimes don't trust the government,
why people are frustrated with sending, you know, paying taxes
that they say, I don't even know where this goes
because you don't know, and sometimes it ends up in
the hands of fraudsters, to the tune of now billions
(30:26):
of dollars there in the state of Minnesota. It's been
wild stuff to watch. But we appreciate you breaking it
all down for us. John, Thank you so much for
keeping an eye on it. We'd love to come back
to you and get an update maybe sometime in the
near future when there's there's kind of more exposed on
all of this, but let's keep exposing it Let's keep
(30:46):
shining the light in all the dark places because we
know that's how we get the best outcomes.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So John, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 7 (30:54):
Thank you great to be with you all.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Right to everybody at home, as always, make sure you like, subscribe,
share and follow, and we'll see you back here next
time for more of the right view and wall back down.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
Baby, May
Speaker 2 (31:12):
There ain't knowing any way out
And oh all back.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Down May May Hey, everybody, thanks so much for joining
us right here on the right view tonight we're joined
by Florida congresswoman, my friend you know her, you love her,
Anna Paulina Luna.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Thank you much for joining us tonight. Congresswoman. We're so
excited to have you on. You have been very vocal
on X about pushing for a band on insider trading
in Congress. I think this is music to a lot
of people's ears. So tell me about this. What inspired
you to lead this charge?
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, since I got in, there's been this no no
like kind of this dirty little secret that all members
of Congress know that there are members actively getting and
engaging in insider trading, so obviously super illegal, but people
kept saying they wanted to do something publicly about it,
especially to the press, but they weren't actually doing anything.
And so I was actually sitting on the steps of
the Capitol with Representative Birchet from Tennessee, and we had
(01:05):
just seen a massive posting from I think it was
that unusual Wales website, but there was a member of
Congress that had done a multimillion dollar trade. Of course,
the legislation went through, so they basically shortened the stock
and I'm like, this is this has to stop, right
Like optically, the American people a don't respect Congress because
of it. I think it's in part why this institution
is so broken, because how could you ever expect to
(01:25):
fix anything if you're personally profiting. And so I said,
you know what, We're just going to force the vote
on this. And so there's a piece of bipartisan legislation
over one hundred Democrats and Republicans collectively had signed onto
to actually bring to the floor for a vote, but
no one in House leadership actually wanted to do it,
and so we filed the discharge petition. We've so far
collected over seventy signatures for it. And then I just
(01:47):
actually got notification about an hour and a half ago
that the speakers wanting to meet with us on Thursday
to discuss bringing the bill to the floor in a
normal fashion, which I would advocate for, but I mean, Laura,
it's been an ongoing issue in a nutshell for a
very long time. No one wanted to fix it, so
we figured we forced the conversation in the bot well.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So that's great news. So hopefully we're going to see
some movement on this soon. You said you have over
seventy members who signed on to the petition, you have
the Speaker wanting to meet about it. Is there something
else you would need or do you just need the
speaker's blessing to get it on the floor.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Well, the Speaker could put it technically on the floor,
you know, this week if you wanted to write, But
ultimately it'll probably happen when we get back, just because
there has to be consensus on the bill. But there's
a lot of parliamentary stuff that goes into it, right,
Like to do an open amendment process would be to
allow members to provide amendments and then mark it up
literally on the floor, and then whatever passes is then
codified and sol and sent over to the Senate. Right,
(02:39):
so that would be the typical process. But I mean,
either which way, when you have people like Nancy Pelosi
who has made seventeen thousand percent returns on her initial investment,
which is statistically not possible unless you are literally insider trading,
and then members both Democrats and Republicans who do engage
in the individual stock trader making now on average six
hundred percent returns on their investments out performing the SA
(03:00):
or you'll have people that have never traded stocks in
their life and all of a sudden they come to
Congress and their you know, outperforming Wall Street. That's a problem,
and so you know it is it is a step
forward in the right direction. I've also heard from, you know,
some of my Democrat colleagues, one most notably Hockeying Jeffreys,
that said, well, you know, Luna just parachuted in and
she doesn't want to include the executive branch.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Well, I would argue that.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
If we had the same standards as an executive branch,
that there would be no insider trading. And so that's
been kind of interesting to see Democrats kind of try
to box himself into the corner on this because it's like,
why would you not want.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
To fix this.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
I've been in Congress a lot less of time versus
these other people, and so why am I having to
fix it?
Speaker 5 (03:36):
But here I am.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I give you a lot of credit for taking this
on because you know, there are a lot of people,
very clearly congresswomen who've made a lot of money because
of this, and I'm sure there are a lot of
people in Congress who were probably like I wish Luna
would just stop talking and just kind of write like
you know that you think about that. I mean, has
(03:59):
anyone ever other than obviously what Hakim Jeffrey said, But
do people ever say like, hey, just knock it.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Off, like that's enough.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
I was told that if we forced the vote, that
we were going to cost you know, the Republican Party
in the midterms, that we were going to destroy democracy,
that we were trying to just force their colleagues to
take bad votes. But I would say to that, you know,
first of all, destroying the democracy of the republic. You know,
the founding fathers didn't have stock portfolios, and they different
definitely didn't anticipate that legislation would be kind of run
(04:26):
the way that it is in the Congress, would be
a full time job at that So probably separate discussion
for term limits.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
But specifically to that.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yeah, they've told me that, you know, this is not
wildly popular.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
But it's interesting because you look at the.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Polling and eighty six percent of Americans support this, yep,
bipartisan length.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I was going to say, I think it's probably unpopular
within the walls of in the halls of Congress. I
think out in the country, the American people would love
to see something like this because I think it actually says,
as you noted, like we should be the example, we
should be doing the right thing here in Congress, right,
So I think that to me, I think that's a
(05:03):
win for the midterms.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't know who thinks otherwise.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
But you're a smart one.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
But you know something else that I think has been
very kind of crazy to see happen. But I guess
maybe you shouldn't surprise us are the activist judges and
prosecutors in these blue states.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Now. I know that you've talked about this.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I've heard, of course the President and Vice president talk
about it. Is there anything that can be done there?
Because I think it is. It's outrageous that it feels
like they're they're thwarting the will of the president, and
that is really the will of the American people who
put them there.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I mean, you know, in the state of Florida, for example,
if we have individuals prosecutors that are undermining federal law.
I mean, I think that there's a certain statute where
the governor could essentially remove someone and we actually had
a case that it happened with a source appointed, a
source funded prosecutor. But you know, for the rest of
the country, unfortunately, I do think that a lot of
these are.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
You know, kind of an touchable and that's why they
choose to pursue what they do.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
But it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't hold them accountable.
For example, when you have you know, judges for example,
that are upholding certain legislation.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Let's say a city's doing something.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Undermining federal law, maybe it goes to court they're undermining it. Well,
there's still something that the DOJ can do if you
know that someone's breaking a federal law, right and so
I think that the DOJ right now is pretty much understaffed,
specifically with the amount of people and resources that they
really have to be able to pursue everything. And to
be clear, you know, you have the Trump administration coming in,
but this is like decades of consolidated power and really swampy,
(06:33):
deep state bureaucratic behavior that has to be really fleshed out.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
And so you know, you could bring forward.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
All the prosecutor or all the cases for prosecution, but
if you don't have the proper attorneys, the AUSA attorneys
to actually try the cases.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Then your short.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Staff there and so would What I would continue to
say is, you know, Congress has that specific ability to
use and leverage the power of the purse. And so
if you see that cities and counties and states are
not playing ball with the right thing to do with
with what the federal governments legislating on and really upholding
the laws of the land, then why the heck are
we funding them? Why are we giving these representatives for
these areas and these districts such massive earmarks and the
(07:10):
appropriation spills. I mean, that's something that I think Congress
as a whole needs to be more aggressive about. But
it does seem really in the last couple of years,
it seemed like Congress really was very happy to not
have social media because they could do these things kind
of behind closed doors and you could didn't really have
a spotlight on it. But now there's people like myself
and others that will call it out and identify it directly.
(07:30):
So I guess it's made me again, probably wildly and
popular within the House Chamber, but popular among the American people.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, we like that you have always have a place
in our hearts for sure. Something that I think is
really amazing is you helped stop American tax dollars from
going to the Taliban, which I mean, first of all,
that is quite an accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I hope you're proud of that.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And please explain how on earth we found ourselves in
this situation where he was going there anyway.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, for so to provide context, I would have never
voted for legislation that allowed that to happen, because that
Taliban literally shot my husband in twenty fourteen when he
was deployed. So like, that's the perspective. And I don't
think that we should be funding any organization or government
like that. We have a lot other bigger issues to fry.
But specifically to that legislation, Tim Burchette had actually come
(08:22):
up with a piece of legislation I think the numbers
like about forty million a week going to the Taliban,
and he put it into log He wanted it to
be in the National Defense Authorization Act that no US
dollars would go to the government of Afghanistan, i e.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
The Taliban.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Right, it was like very simple language, and they refused
to add it into the National Defense Authorization Act. In fact,
there was one staffer specifically that ripped it out over there.
And then so what we did is when it came
time for the bill to be voted on on the
House floor, so went to Senate and then came back
to the House to you know, be sent through then
off to the President's ysk for signature. Birchett, myself and
Bober actually withheld our votes and then we actually had
(08:59):
the Speaker get the Secretary of State on the phone
and explain the situation. And Secretary Rubia, to his credit,
said like, first of all, we are unaware that this
was still happening, and Burchette actually does have a list
of about a thousand NGOs that are actually engaging in this.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
We totally have the paper trail for it.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
And so he said, look, make an appointment with my
office as soon as you get this. Get this information
directly to me, and I'll cut it off immediately. He
was joking, goes, youah, the President would have my behind
if you realized that the State Department was doing this.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
And so, to Rubia's.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Credit, had he not been made aware of that and
had we not withheld the vote, then that wouldn't have happened.
Because there's so many people that, especially within the Secretary
or even the executive branch, they try to kind of
consolidate and pad and insulate really the members or the
secretary in these different positions.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
And so we're able to go direct.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
General has always talked to General, so we're able to
go direct to sender. And actually I believe it's going
to be sometime this week that Secretary Rubio will be
meeting with Timberjett and myself to actually get that finalized.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I cannot believe that any anyone was advocating for that.
That is, it's just mind byuggling. It's just mind boggling.
But thank you, thank you for making sure that didn't happen.
That is absolutely wild. But it just goes to show
what a little bit of thoughtfulness and effort will do.
You know, a lot of people would have just been
(10:14):
fine to say, like, all right, this isn't our problem,
like we're just going to look the other way. But
it takes someone like you. It takes someone like President
Trump who says, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is this is
not right, Like we can't continue on like this. So
so thank you for so much for doing that. This
has been quite a year in Congress, It's been quite
(10:35):
a year for the country. Obviously, we have President Trump
as his into his first full year back in the
White House. What what do you expect to see happen
in twenty twenty six. What are some of your priorities
and focus is going to be in the coming year?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
The number one thing, I think, especially for the based
Republican voter, and then also for turnout for the midterms,
because remember, if we don't win the midterms, it's going
to be impeachment two point out all over again. And
you know, it's interesting because even Nancy Pulos is like,
why don't see grounds for impeachment? Well, Nancy, where there
was never grounds for impeachment in the first place. But
she's also on our way out, so she's not worried
about her reelection, so she's telling the truth for probably
(11:13):
the first time in her entire career. But you know,
you have this aspect of really the American people and
really like some members of Congress like myself, that are
frustrated that we haven't been able to codify more of
Trump's executive orders. And so just today it was announced
out of the House top that I believe that it's
going to be eighty one executive orders. I think it
was Caroline Lovett maybe that was also in conjunction discussing
this of the executive orders will be codified into law,
(11:36):
and that's incredibly important because you know, when eventually a
Democrat administration comes in or a Democrat Congress comes in,
you have to make sure that those laws are literally
carved in stone, because it's not that often that you
have a Democrat super majority or Republican supermajority, which means
you have all three chambers House, Senate and then White
House as well, or two chambers and then the White House,
and so it's really important that we make sure that happens.
(11:58):
So i'd say that that's probably topic number one, and
then also to talking about issues of affordability. Remember President
Trump inherited literally a garbage on fire from the Biden administration,
and there's certain things that we can do though to
ensure that everything that he's been fighting for, and really
he's been doing a lot of the heavy blocking that
we're able to get wins on.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
And so the number one thing I think would.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Be focusing on is, for example, something easy like a
capping prescription pill prices.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
That's something that's incredibly like just in.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
My opinion, it's very you know, you don't have to
think about it too much on understanding that that's a
win for the American people and so things like that
I think would be top priority. And then also to
ensuring that Congress is backing the president's perspective and the
administration really on his foreign policy. I do think I
think a lot of people have not talked about this,
but if President Trump, which I think he will be,
(12:46):
with Steve Wincoffin and also Jared Kushner being able to
accomplish the Ukraine Russia peace deal, we're talking about a
two trillion dollar trade deal potential on the horizon, that's
going to be great for everyone. I mean, you think
that right now things are expensive actuality, I think that
it's going to drop significantly better than you would have
ever seen under the Biden administration.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Well, I will tell you all of that stuff sounds
absolutely great to me and to a lot of people.
And I love that you brought up the midterms. This
is just to wrap it up, because we know you
got things going on. You know, everyone talks about the
midterms Everyone talks about why we need to win these midterms,
But I still believe that if the Democrats were able
(13:27):
to get their you know, claws back in Congress, that
they were able to get a majority in the House
and Senate again. Congresswoman, I think that we're looking at
DC and Puerto Rico statehood. I think we're looking at
a pack Supreme Court. I think we're looking at eliminating
the filibuster. I think this could be very dangerous. And
you're absolutely right, they're gonna they can't wait to impeach
(13:48):
the president again. It's all they're just salivating over the
prospect of it. Tell the American people why this is
so important to keep a House and Senate under Republican
leadership in the coming year.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, because, I mean they've said it. The Democrats have
said it point blank. I mean their game plan is
to a obstruct and then be impeach where they can.
And so they are going to do everything that they can.
If you think that you're you know, noticing gas prices
going down, et cetera, that's because of foreign policy wins,
that's because of domestic policy wins. And they're going to
do everything they can to stop that. You know, it's
interesting right now, we're talking about health care a lot
(14:24):
on the Hill and you have, you know, people like
Mike Lawler, who actually had you know, a great floor speech.
He goes, you know, the Democrats aren't even trying to
fix this issue. We have maybe potentially solutions here, but
they don't even want to allow their members to sign
on to a discharge petition that could offer solution because
they're actually not focused on actually fixing it. They're focused
on reelecting, trying to get their base drummed up for
the midterms and a show of support, and that you know,
(14:46):
they really don't care at.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
What cost or expense that it happens at.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And so I you know, unfortunately, I see these conversations
happen on a regular basis behind closed doors.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
And so that's the reality. We have a very short window.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And look, I'm a member of Congress, and I'm not
always happy with the way that Congress performs.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
However, I can tell you it's a heck of a.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Lot better in this administration and in a Republican health
Congress than under Democrat or Democrat presidency.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
And that's just the fact of the matter.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
You know, we went from having you know, people flashing
people on the White House lawn that were biological males,
to a number of other creepy things happening out of
the Department of the formal Department of Defense, to where
we have a strong military, we have you know, class
back in the White House, and we have a lot
of good people that genuinely care about this country.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
And so we're going to continue.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I hope to be on the campaign trail with you
and with the President in the midterms. I'm sure you'll
be out there. He loves you. You're great at what
you do. Laura, thank you, and we'll be helping the
president bring home the win.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
We have to do it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
It's important, you know, people tend to during these midterm
years kind of get laxadaisical about things. We can't do
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(15:59):
get out and vote in those midterms. So Congresswoman Patlin Aluna,
thank you so much for joining us this evening.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
We appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Thanks for all you do, keep kicking ass there in
DC and taking names. We absolutely love to see it
and we'll talk to you very soon. Thank you so much,
my friend.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
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We're joined by President of the American Experiment, John Hinderocker. John,
(18:19):
Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being
with us. As someone who's based in Minnesota, you know
where we gotta go. We gotta go to the fraud.
I have to ask you about this. It is so
mind boggling to think that at least that we know
of a billion dollars in fraud was committed there in
the state of Minnesota. Tell me about what you found
(18:41):
to be the case there. Did people know that there
was something going on where they're whispers of this before
it came to light, because I think a lot of
us were totally shaken whenever we heard the news of
this come out.
Speaker 6 (18:53):
Well, first of all, the assistant US Attorney who has
prosecuted all these cases has publicly said that.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
The total fraud, and there are multiple.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
Frauds, add up to the billions of dollars plurals. He
says his office does not have the band power to
prosecute the ball. Some of these people are going to
walk because law enforcement really just can't handle the multiplicity
of frauds.
Speaker 7 (19:15):
So there's a lot of history here.
Speaker 6 (19:17):
My organization American Experiment on my website power Line have
both been writing about the Feeding our Future fraud, which
is the biggest of them and the one that got
the most famous since January of twenty twenty two. So
that'll be four years next month.
Speaker 7 (19:32):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
This is locally really kind of an old story. It
was investigated by the FBI, it's been prosecuted by the
US Attorney's Office, and there have been two trials with
criminal convictions. There's another fifty or sixty defendants who have
pleaded guilty, and so there's a lot of water over
this dam. And there have been prior scandals centered in
the Somali community here in Minnesota. You can go back
(19:55):
a decade and there were childcare scandals where people would
just make up aims of Somali children and claim that
they're caring for them in these daycare centers, and in
fact they didn't exist. And there were some criminal prosecutions
I think a decade ago, arising out of those frauds.
Speaker 7 (20:11):
So there's a lot of history here. Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
So how did that one the feeding our future start
to come to light? Was there something special that kind
of broke the dam on that?
Speaker 7 (20:23):
Well?
Speaker 6 (20:24):
I think actually there were some people in the Somali
community who started blowing the whistle and say, hey, there's
an enormous amount of money flowing out of the state
government and going to defraudsters. And the FBI got a
tip and they started to investigate. State authorities never did
do anything. There was a lawsuit going on between Feeding
(20:44):
Our Future and the Department of Education of the State
of Minnesota, which is the agency that oversaw that particular program.
That lawsuit dragged on for some time. But these prosecutions
have all been federal and they've all been the result
of investstigation by the FBI and prosecution by the US
Attorney's Office now extending over a period of going on
(21:08):
four years.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
So the question that everyone has, and I don't know
that we'll ever get an answer to this, is why
did Governor Tim Walls's administration failed to either prevent this
or stop it whenever? It seems like they knew about it.
From what I've read, it sounds like there were kind
of rumblings of this, but they said, oh, we don't
(21:30):
want to look like we're targeting a certain group or anything.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
What is your take on that.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Well, there's a lot you could say there. The Legislative
Auditor did an investigation, wrote a very good report tracing
the history of the Feeding our Future fraud in particular
and talking about the reasons for it, and she concluded
that the ultimate cause was a culture within these state
agencies where they just don't care about other people's money.
(21:58):
They're there to write check and they didn't really care
is this legit, is it fraudulent? Is a person eligible
for this program? They saw their job simply as writing checks.
I think it goes a little bit deeper than that.
The Walls administration has poured billions and billions of dollars
into the Somali community. Some of it was legal, some
(22:20):
of it was legitimate, some of it was just successively generous,
and we now know that a lot of it was fraudulent.
But at the end of the day, that didn't really matter.
The billions of dollars that the Walls administration poured into
the Somali community had the desired result, which is to
create a very loyal and substantial voting block in the
(22:42):
city of Minneapolis, in Hannipin County, which is the county
of Minneapolis is in, and even the whole state.
Speaker 7 (22:48):
There have been statewide.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Elections that have been swung by Somali voters, and I
think that is probably the ultimate cause. This is a
classic example of using other people's money to buy votes.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You know, to hear you say that the people who
were kind of working in these different agencies weren't concerned
with other people's money. I think that's exactly right, and
I think it's part of the thing that frustrates so
many Americans. It's why John, I'm guessing whenever people started
hearing initially about Doge and what Elon Musk was doing
with Doge, people were like, well, thank god, somebody is
(23:23):
paying attention, because it feels like to the average American
that you have no idea what happens to your money,
and you assume the worst, You assume that things like
this are happening out there. And to hear that that
was probably the case, man, that is so upsetting and
so frustrating and shame on all of these people.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You got to be better than that. That is part
of your job.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And I'm hopefully they clean house and we get you know,
new people in there at the very least who understand
the value of people's money.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
But I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think a lot of this comes down to politics.
When you hear Tim Walls, I believe it was this weekend,
a fundraising event in Seattle, talking about the fact that
he wants to bring more Somali's into the state of Minnesota.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
That kind of tells you all you need to know.
Speaker 7 (24:10):
John, It kind of boggles the mind. Let me just
add this thing.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
There are multiple programs, multiple different frauds. What are these programs?
It was a medicaid program and the idea was to
give people advice on how they could find housing. What
that has to do with medicaid, I don't know. But
an investigation found that out of the one hundred million
dollars that program spent last year twenty twenty four, there
(24:35):
was not a single.
Speaker 7 (24:36):
Dollar that was proper and legal.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
The entire one hundred million dollars was completely fraudulent, and
they terminated the program. So we're not just talking about
a little fraud around the edges, you know, We're talking
about just unbelievable, pervasive, massive fraud.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Jeez, let me ask Let me ask you about Tim
Walls becoming Kamala Harris's v pick.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Did that surprise you? What did you make of that?
Speaker 6 (25:04):
Well, I think it's surprised almost everywhere. You know he
got on the short list. I'm to put out a
list of five or six people, and Tim Wallas was
probably the least well known and the least likely to
get the VP nomination on that list. But in my opinion,
what happened is that one thing after another came along.
So Mark Kelly was probably going to be the guy
I started from Arizona that it turned out he was
(25:25):
a partner in a satellite deal with the communist Chinese.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
That'll do it every time.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
Yeah, the governor of Kentucky pulled out for whatever reason,
so what after another fell? It looked like it was
going to be Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. But
then at the eleventh and they even scheduled the rally
where they're going to make the announcement in Philadelphia. It
wasn't Minneapolis, it was Philadelphia, and Josh Shapiro.
Speaker 7 (25:50):
Was going to be the VP nominee.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
But then just days before that happened, there was a
story that came out when he was a college student,
he wrote a paper that was critical of the Palestinians,
was pro Israel. The anti Semites on Twitter went crazy,
genocide Josh, hashtag genocide Josh was all over left wing Twitter.
(26:13):
And what I think happened is Kamla panicked and said,
oh no, I can't go with the Shapiro, who's left.
Then the guy that was left was Tim Walls. I
don't think he was very carefully vetted, and he certainly
was not at that time very widely known.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Oh my gosh, No, I think it shocked all of us,
because you're right, I think we all assumed Josh Shapiro
was probably the guy, especially to your point. They had
a whole thing set up there in Pennsylvania. Believe me,
when we heard Tim Walls and then to see them
try to make Tim Walls, like you know, become the guy, it.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Just didn't stick. It didn't land, I don't think with
the American people.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
So no, no, that was probably not the best pig
turned out. It was a great pig as far as
we were concerned at the RNC and the Trump campaign.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Have there been any political repercussions or investigations into any
of these state officials that we're mentioning that are probably
involved in all of this chaos there in Minnesota.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Well, in April, my organization obtained a tape recording that
had been made by a participant, secretly made by a
participant in a meeting between six or seven feeding our
future people and our Attorney General, Keith Ellison, and they
were complaining that the Department of Education was starting to
get tough. They were talking about cutting off funding and
(27:32):
could Alison intervene to protect them from these people who
are questioning all this money flowing out the door, because
after all, it's just racism, right And so our Attorney
General Keith Ellison said, yeah, a lot of racists in
these agencies. Sometimes I have to make a phone call
that'll usually take care of it. And he said, Governor
Wallace agrees with me that these stupid piddly things either
(27:55):
Feeding our Future scandal shouldn't be used against East Africa
and business people. And about nine days I think it
was after that, some of these Feeding our Future people
made campaign contributions to Keith Ellison and also his son
who's also in politics. And then a few days after
that the FBI raids happened and the whole scandal blue
(28:16):
sky high. But right up until the last minute, the
Attorney General of our state, far from leading the prosecutions,
far from running the investigations and uncovering and prosecuting the fraud,
was undertaking to help the fraudsters.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
That's probably the least surprising thing I've ever heard, especially
as it relates to Keith Ellison.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
There are other attorneys general around the country who likewise
have not really done the job that they were elected
to do. But that's probably the least surprising thing anybody's
ever heard. So do you think, John, that this ultimately
has any sort of an impact in the way people
in Minnesota their thing? Do you think that this shakes
(28:58):
people awake and they say, wait a minute, Maybe we
got to wake up and we got to study for
whom we are voting a little more close, So we've
got to study what the goals are of these people.
Maybe does this push them a little more right in Minnesota?
What do you think the impact of this will be?
Speaker 7 (29:15):
Well, it had better have some impact. Right.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
If this doesn't, I'm not sure what it would take.
My organization polled this issue for our quarterly magazine in September.
Our polling found that fifty six percent of respondents thought
Governor Walls had not done enough about fraud in the suburbs,
which are the key battleground areas. Sixty one percent thought
he hadn't done enough. Now, after the scandal went national,
(29:38):
that's when it was still a Minnesota news story.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
Then it went national.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
Within the last month or so, one of the local
TV stations did some polling and the numbers were even worse.
There's a high level of concern and a high level
of criticism directed toward Tim Walls and his administration in
the polling. So we'll find out in November, I guess,
you know, we'll find out whether voters are really to
(30:02):
be serious about this or not.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
It is an interesting situation and I think it, you know,
it perfectly encapsulates why people oftentimes don't trust the government,
why people are frustrated with sending, you know, paying taxes
that they say, I don't even know where this goes
because you don't know, and sometimes it ends up in
the hands of fraudsters, to the tune of now billions
(30:26):
of dollars there in the state of Minnesota. It's been
wild stuff to watch. But we appreciate you breaking it
all down for us. John, Thank you so much for
keeping an eye on it. We'd love to come back
to you and get an update maybe sometime in the
near future when there's there's kind of more exposed on
all of this, but let's keep exposing it Let's keep
(30:46):
shining the light in all the dark places because we
know that's how we get the best outcomes.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So John, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 7 (30:54):
Thank you great to be with you all.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Right to everybody at home, as always, make sure you like, subscribe,
share and follow, and we'll see you back here next
time for more of the right view and wall back down.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
Baby, May
Speaker 2 (31:12):
There ain't knowing any way out
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